Yes, sorry. I was thinking about Ukraine as I was typing.
Perfectly understandable.
And I’m cynical enough to picture how a bizzare kind of both-sides-ism may lead someone to punish both parties, the aggressor and the victim, on some kind of psychotic “it takes two” rationale. I’m glad the IOC is doing something non-shitty in the news.
I keep reading about how the A-10 is unsuitable for Ukraine because it is slow and could be easily shot down, but then how is that any different than the Su-25s which Ukraine has been using very ably in this war for two years?
Weren’t the Russians already banned from competing as a team for some sort of doping shenanigans?
I haven’t been following the play by play of the war closely.
But assuming the Ukrainian Su-25s are being deployed over the battlefield and are surviving, then yes, I agree that the A-10’s survivability ought to be quite similar.
Only tangentially related to the above …
What a lot of armchair folks don’t understand is just how big an undertaking it is to field a new aircraft type into a military service. “We’ll just send them some F-16s / A-10s / [whatevers] to stem the tide in the current battle for [wherever]” sounds easy, but typically has a 2-year ramp-up time.
USAF could show up literally tomorrow and be employing F-16s or A-10s effectively in quantity the very next morning. Getting the Ukrainians to the same place is the work of years, not weeks.
Which is not an excuse to not make those transfers. But instead is a caution about how big and slow an undertaking it is.
And, given the political vicissitudes throughout the West but especially in the USA, is a caution about the duration of sustained commitment required. If you can’t make a decision and be assured of sticking to it for 5+ years, there’s no point in deciding to start down that road.
At least 49 Su-25s have been shot down on both sides that we know of and can confirm, which represents the single highest total of any combat model in this conflict. They are in fact quite vulnerable in a war against a modern, robust air defense system. There is a reason that the latest Russian offensive push has been with the far more modern Su-34 rather than aging Su-25, even though despite losses they still have plenty of much cheaper Su-25s to use.
That said the Su-25 can operate from short, unpaved airfields - the A-10 cannot. The Su-25 is smaller, purportedly more maneuverable and much faster. The Su-25 is more robust, with considerably more titanium armor (on a smaller plane). It also has a much smaller payload and much shorter range than the A-10. But in the current conflict where they have to fly low-level ‘shoot and scoot’ missions to survive rather than loiter over battlefields shooting fish in a barrel (a la the A-10 over Iraq) that doesn’t matter nearly as much. The Su-25 is better suited to this conflict, but still not great for it.
Which isn’t a smashing endorsement for deploying Warthogs
So, 43% loss rate over two years. If any meaningful proportion of that was also crew loss, that isn’t sustainable for a small country like Ukraine. A-10s are no good if you can’t pilots into the seats.
Given that we’re not using our A-10s anyway, why not just give them to Ukraine, and tell them “Hey, you guys decide how much use to make of these, and how quickly”?
Available number of competent pilots would become the limiting factor pretty quickly if the loss rate is too high. Also the west isn’t that keen on the optics of high loss rates of equipment .
A well-equipped air force generally starts with fewer planes than pilots of that type of plane. Each shootdown will result in one fewer plane for sure but maybe you get the pilot back in usable condition. Worst case you lose both plane and pilot one for one.
So over time, you expect to lose more planes than pilots and your supply of pilots will relatively increase compared to your supply of airplanes.
As well, sometimes airplanes are destroyed on the ground by enemy action which usually doesn’t also cost pilots.
Where you lose pilots is illness, age, a combat injury where the wounded pilot brought back the wounded airplane and it could be repaired well enough to keep flying whereas he/she could not. And attacks on the base, e.g. artillery fire landing in the pilots’ barracks area.
In wealthy air forces not fighting for survival you also lose pilots as they rotate to non-combat assignments or leave the service. Ideally the newbie pipeline is running at a rate to keep up, and if not typically the service will do something to slow or stop the self-imposed administrative attrition of combat pilots.
Hungary and Slovakia have refused to send arms to Ukraine. Hungary I expected, but Slovakia? Not that I know squat about that country.
Yes, Slovakia is a problem. This article (gift link) explains some context:
From the article:
The outgoing president, Zuzana Caputova, an outspoken liberal, has used her limited powers and the bully pulpit to resist the agenda of Prime Minister Robert Fico, a pugnacious veteran politician who returned to power in October after years in the political wilderness. He resigned in disgrace as prime minister in 2018 amid a swirl of corruption accusations after the murder of an investigative journalist who had been looking into government graft.
Mr. Fico, who since he returned to power has often presented the United States, not Russia, as the main threat to European security, wants to reverse Slovakia’s previously robust support for Ukraine. He also seeks to overhaul the judicial systems so as to limit its ability to prosecute corruption.
Their newly installed PM (returning to power after two previous stints) wants to be another Orban. Here’s some more of his shenanigans.
Edit: ninja’d!
Thank you both for the information!
I’m putting this here instead of the breaking news thread because it’s not directly related to the invasion.
The Russian Navy were engaged in firing exercises, and accidentally hit a trawler, killing three.
Perhaps they mistook it for a Japanese torpedo boat?
There haas been an attack in the outskirts of Moscow, many dead, many more injured:
The Russian exile publication Meduza has a news-ticker like information site:
The information is confusing, journalists close to the Kreml claim Western powers had threatened with this attack for weeks (many Western nations had issued warnings that something like that was probable and recomended their own nationals not to join crowds). Some quote Putin as condemning this as blackmail (?) and issuing threats towards and unspecified foreign enemy and aggressor.
Always remember that one of the first Putin acts way back in 2000 was to have the FSB blow up several buildings in Russia, blaming the Chechen “terrorists” that he would “pursue even when sitting on the toilet” (cite).
No doubt they’ll try to blame it on Ukraine in some way. And Russia seems to seriously think the West attacking concerts is their style.
That looks like a real fishing trawler, not a “trawler”.
In which case, that sucks for an innocent civilian ship trying to do some business getting whacked by the live fire of (possibly incompetent) Russian warships.
So not so different from the USN and TWA800. Except far more Americans were killed than Russians.